Clearly, the semantic difference between the headline's words and the article's words mean there is nothing here about which anyone should be concerned. As all patriots know, we should never fear the government's ability to do something. This is why so many people who are fine with NSA spying programs completely support gun registration.

Outrageous Muff:However regulations say that all NSA collected data can not be used against a US citizen and that all dealings with citizens are handed over to the FBI who does get warrants.

We should also let the cops search our houses and vehicles so they can decide if they need to get a warrant to search for the things that they just searched for. I can't see how this could possibly go wrong.

Only 10% of the prison population is innocent, so it is all good, right? Rights? What the hell are those?

Gobama, go sheeple. You guys cried bloody murder because under Bush there were rumors if you took out bomb making books in a library for might be reported. Not a single incident I can remember hearing about. Obama? Record everyone's telephone and Internet traffic, no problem. Sick the IRS and EPA on your political enemies, no problem. Americans killed overseas because of screw ups? Who cares....

J. Frank Parnell:mediablitz: HypnozombieX: It's the whole reason that the internet was released to the masses to begin with. To have another dimension in which developed countries could dominate. The good news is that they didn't think their clever plan all the way through. Oh yeah,fark the NSA

There's paranoia, then there is PARANOIA...

Yeah, next he'll be saying the internet was invented and given to the world by DARPA.

If I could go back in time, I would change their name to the Defense Enhanced Research Projects Agency.

Lando Lincoln:We're not talking about governments spying on each other.

No, you're talking about a subject you only know have the side off, and when you are told it you dismiss it because the "government is evil and lies to us". You think a democratic government that has secrets is evil, yet you cheer China and Russia for defending "freedoms".

THAT is real news. Although the fact that they keep those numbers and ran an internal investigation points more to "normal bureaucracy" than "diabolical big brother agency," but it's disturbing that they don't have to share those numbers with the Congressmen who authorize the program. They should see how often, and how badly, it messes up as part of their decision making.

GanjSmokr:I'm curious... to those of you here who say "they aren't actually monitoring, they just have the capability to monitor", would you be as dismissive of this situation if the president had a different (LETTER) behind his name?

Be honest with yourselves. I'm sure some of you actually would be as dismissive, but I'm equally sure that some or you would be very vocal about your displeasure.

/personally, I think it's bad no matter who's in charge//but I try not to be a partisan idiot most of the time, too.

The Muthaship:Maybe sadder than the fact that the government is illegally spying on innocent Americans en mass, is how many of those citizens are making excuses for them.

CrazyCracka420:Also the FBI and other spying agencies certainly would never illegally spy on citizens, it's not like Hoover used this information for furthering political agendas in this country.

Seriously, you unpatriotic spineless farks who support this illegal spying on our own citizens, are pretty farking ignorant to our own country's history.

We need Inigo Montoya up in here. "Illegal" does not mean "I don't like it." I do not support illegal spying, but as of right now none of what has been reported on by the press has mentioned any law breaking, just that the NSA has the capability of intercepting and reading lots of information which they do not do until they have an approved warrant from a judge.

Next stage: We record and data-mine absolutely everything in every electronic form of communication using super-computers programmed to look for suspicious key-words and patterns. But humans do not read more than a fraction of the data, after it is tagged by the computers for a human judgment and more complete surveillance if deemed useful.

DROxINxTHExWIND:I don't want to be THAT guy, but I remember in all of the "Truther" threads when people like me suggested that maybe the Bush administration knew more or even were complicit, the argument against it was, "the governement is incapable of that sort of efficiency".

/I guess they've been training

As has been mentioned, the actual usefulness of what data has actually been collected I'd imagine is questionable...simply from sheer volume. But that doesn't make the act of collection proper or legal.

Do you tinfoil-wearing internet pirvacy people understand the logistical problems that arise from recording that much data? Much less the time and manpower it would take to look at at and catalog it for anything?